Colorado lawmakers are heading back to the Capitol on Monday for a special session to reconsider civil unions for same-sex couples and a host of other bills that died in a crossfire over the gay-rights issue.

But days before lawmakers go back, they're already fighting.

Democrats in the state House on Thursday blasted Republican leaders for causing the special session by preventing civil unions, and thus dozens of other bills, from coming to a vote on the House floor earlier this week. But House Republicans blamed Democrats for causing the deaths of the bills, and Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, suggested there was a higher, coordinated effort by Democrats.

"I suspect that it is not simply coincidence that the governor had President Obama's top Colorado operatives shuttling in and out of his office (Wednesday) morning," McNulty told reporters Thursday. "It seems to me that it could quite possibly be more than coincidence that the president came out in favor of gay marriage, and then we have a statement only hours later that a call would be issued to bring the House back to deal with Senate Bill 2 (the civil unions bill)."

Hickenlooper, a Democrat who has a good relationship with the president, laughed incredulously when told of McNulty's comments. The governor said neither he nor anyone on his staff had talked to the White House nor the Obama campaign about the issue.

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"No one from the Obama campaign has been around. I haven't seen anybody at all. My feelings have been a little hurt," Hickenlooper joked. "I don't know what he (McNulty) is referring to or how he's construing it."

Some were revived Wednesday, the final day of the session, but Hickenlooper said the special session would address seven unresolved issues:

• Funding $55 million in water projects.

• Penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

• Civil unions.

• Stabilizing unemployment insurance rates.

• Creating "benefit corporations" in Colorado.

• Registering "special mobile machinery fleets."

• Asking voters to amend the state constitution by repealing provisions deemed obsolete, including a measure that barred local governments from prohibiting discrimination against gays.

There's nothing to guarantee the special session won't just be a replay of what happened during the regular session. McNulty said the special session was a "reset," which could mean new legislation going to new committees with new members.

House Minority Leader Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, said McNulty may "stack" committees and said he expected Republicans would again try to keep the bill from coming up for a vote on the floor. There would be deep political repercussions from that, he said, adding that the story is getting picked up by national media.

"Part of the reason we're seeing this level of attention is not the policy," he said. "While the policy is supported by the vast majority of Coloradans, what also is galvanizing people is the process. They feel that the democratic process was thwarted."

Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com

Calls to order

Colorado governors have called lawmakers into special session on a variety of issues, from taxes to Prohibition, and even a grasshopper infestation in 1978. A look at special sessions in the past two decades:

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